There's plenty of cases where it was mishandled (along with mishandling plenty of other things).

This is a classic playbook of taking egregious missteps on handling policy and blaming the policy itself instead of the administrative failure.

For example, we want "drug free" schools, right? So the "easiest" thing to do is establish zero tolerance rules that lead to situations like this:

https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/strip-search-13-year...

Does that mean we no longer want "drug free" schools?

I was careful with my claims and there are many more examples. Also there are valid philosophical reasons to disagree with such policies.

You vastly downplay what happened in those instances as “mishandling.” They read straight out of a dystopian novel.

If real people can’t be trusted to administer policy of promoting bias without becoming biased, then the policy must be abolished. (Not surprisingly.)

The last thing I want to do is defend university bureaucrats.

The policies themselves should be the focal point of discussion, i.e., if there's merit to be had and how to deliver on that without making things worse.

Would you also call the strip-search incident I cited as dystopian? I would. I am stridently against The War on Drugs, but I also think keeping drugs out of schools is a good thing.

Using your approach the answer would be to not have any school policies about drugs on campus.

Yes—though when dystopian policy intrudes into hiring committees and "pledges of alliance," I feel it goes a step beyond mere bad policy.

So then you're not opposed to the concept of DEI as I've tried to clarify? That is, to ensure opportunities are made public and possible to all who might qualify, even if they're not in the inner circle of those who are dispensing with said opportunities?

You know where you can find literal pledges of alliance these days? The Federal government, where they're doing loyalty checks to The King. Dystopian enough?

Yes, why I mentioned EOE, which felt like the right amount of assertiveness and not zealotry.

One of the things I check for in job postings is they include age in their non-discrimination list. Since it will apply to everyone sooner or later.